This is UNBELIEVABLE.

Exactly a year to the day of my arrival back in South Africa, where my welcome home present was the prompt theft of my precious laptop (let me just say, NEVER allow a South African Airways crewmember to assist you with your carry-on luggage aboard a flight, because you might never see your precious cargo ever again), the laptop I had been using since June died yesterday. Just like that. One minute we were still happily chained to one another, dreaming up blog posts and columns, and the next minute... kaput. No great explosion. The screen simply went black and the comforting whir of the machine simply grew silent.

I don't know what it is with Christmas and laptops and me.

So I'm typing this on my mom's ancient Dinosaur of a pc using D...I...A...L...U...P. And I have deadlines to meet and right now the only thing I want to do is curl up and die too.

Please send loads of sympathy my way?